[three things]
1. i've mentioned this in passing a few times over the last few months and my last couple closet cleanouts have reinforced this, but i am over wearing color. it's a little weird because my job is pretty heavily focused on color combinations. when i am not busy at night being a superhero or vampire, i design the interiors for educational buildings. i spend a lot of time getting finishes and furniture to be the perfect combination of cheerful and identifiable without being distracting or busy. lately i've been on a kick of using lime green/magenta/blood orange or fire engine red/light slightly-greenish blue. yet i find myself wearing more and more gray tones. i have a pretty serious case of "you can pull that off, but i would never wear it" when it comes to bright colors. (that was me saying that awful phrase to a building, just FYI.)

2. i wore this last friday to early morning starbucks fun time and casual friday at work with no external meetings. i'm definitely still a big fan of using pointy toes and a blingy necklace to dress up a seriously simple outfit.

3. how did i not have gray jeans until recently? okay...yeah, more gray...see #1 above.

Friday, May 23, 2014

[three things]
1. the last time i was wearing these jeans i had a thought that a pair of heels in the same color would be kinda awesome. as it turns out, i wore light gray spotted heels for my wedding, so i totally had the shoes in my closet the whole time. bam! these two were just meant to be together.

2. sometimes i end up with a friday schedule that is full of meetings, so i've been pairing my jeans with jackets to keep things a bit professional while still taking advantage of casual friday.

[three things]
1. pattern mixing! chevrony lines and snakeskin-ish heels! this is a new one for me.

2. my closet is kinda lacking in summer tops because i've always worked in cold offices. this brown one ends up getting layered up a lot in the summer months.

3.i've been asked a few times about the more expensive brands that show up around here and i how i budget for such purchases. and since i am wearing two of my more spendy purchases, i figured it was about time to talk about it. i have three sources - the tj maxx designer section, ebay alerts, and thredup's x collection (here's a referral link for ten bucks off) and the rest is just waiting and comparison shopping. i have a pretty good idea of how much i will/should pay for things like vince silk tops and joie dresses which helps out a lot. this isn't a sponsored post or anything, i just thought i would drop some of my shopping hints.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

+
one of my co-workers and i have this thing with encouragement post-its for tough situations/days/projects. while "OMG you are so good at paperwork" is one of my favorites, she left me this phrase the other day and it definitely cracked me up.

[three things]
1. i'm going to be brutally honest here and talk about courtesy items for a second. i tend to get excited about the prospect of clothing gifts arriving in the mail just because i am awesome. or, more realistically, in exchange for including them in my outfit posts. i like wearing new clothes. and i like getting them as gifts. but really, most of time the items i receive don't end up being my favorites. yup, i just admitted it. i am guessing that other blog readers see through the transparency of promoting c/o items that only show up once on a blog and are never mentioned again. that's the terms of the transaction and i get it. it just seems kinda silly to me. i don't really deal with this much since i run a small time operation that is mostly for my own amusement. i ignore almost all of the "collaboration" inquiries that i receive.

2. with that said, how neat would it be if you got a pair of courtesy gold pants in the mail and then you legitimately liked them? yup, that just happened. (well, it was more like a month ago actually.) my original post about these pants is back here and here they are again with more gray.

3. this bag got demoted to yoga clothes transportation duty for awhile, but it is definitely back in regular rotation now. it's not big enough to fit all my towels and waterbottles anyway.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

[three things]
1. i posted about thisfruit-print tank a few weeks ago and then the boy randomly ordered it for me. for some reason, he did not pick the shirt with the googly eyes. maybe i'll have to get crafty to make that one happen.

2. when i was in high school, we played a homecoming game against fruitport one year, so the hallways were decorated with all sorts of fruit destruction themed signage and stickers. i'm pretty sure there were still pineapple and orange stickers on lockers years later and i'm guessing that fruitport's hallways were not plastered with our coonskin hat stickers (our mascot was a pioneer). #whoreallywon

3. i'm back wearing pants for construction meetings again at least one day a week. boo. it is definitely my least favorite part of my job.

[wearing]
1. as the weather gets warmer and i am more likely to not be wearing long sleeves, my fitbit buddy has been getting noticed a lot more. i've been wearing it every day since christmas and i'm totally amused by all the statistics. i am less likely to be wearing a hair tie around my wrist these days, but this rubber wristband is here to stay.

2. dress season! getting dressed for work just got so much easier.

3. it's going be a neutrals kind of summer, so i better get to work on my pinterest board!

Monday, May 5, 2014

[three things]
1. over my last few summers in chicago, horse racing has become part of our social calendar since there's a track out in the northwest suburbs. (you can look back on our track adventures from last year, two years ago, and three years ago.)

2. when some of the boy's friends invited us to a kentucky derby party this year where hats were encouraged, i was definitely excited about busting out my oversized straw hat early this year.